Nope. Not AT ALL right. If you try to "lose the weight" first and then "tone up" (which is another myth I will get to in a bit) you're just wasting your time and prolonging the process. What most people don't realize is that it is perfectly safe for someone who is overweight to do things OTHER than cardio... The key is that modifications for exercises need to be used in order to help the person perform them correctly.

Actually, that's the key for everyone... Do all the things, but make sure you do them right.

The other thing we need to remember is that "toning" (aka building muscle) is an important part of weight loss. Building muscle helps increase the amount of calories your body burns EVEN WHILE AT REST. Yes, it's true! 1 pound of fat needs a lot less energy (aka food) than 1 pound of muscle mass. This means that the 30-45 min you get with your dumbbell friends gets you a lot more bang than 30-45 min on a boring stair master. By building muscle mass on a potentially overweight person (or anyone), all that happens is the person improves their body composition (their muscle to fat ratio) which is a GREAT THING.

I mean really, do you want to be "skinny fat"? No.

Again, not AT ALL right. Like I talked about in the above section, cardio only gives you a calorie burn while you are doing it. Lifting weights gives you a calorie burn during the workout and after. Muscle is "expensive", it takes a lot of food to keep it up. In reality, if losing weight is really your only goal after reading all this, then DIET is what you need to focus on.

You can never out-train a bad diet. Yes, even with lots of cardio.

Ladies, it’s time to get over the fear of getting “big”, or “bulky”, or “manly” or whatever the heck else you want to call it. Let’s face it… we just DON’T have the same amounts of testosterone that men have. It’s just not possible for us to look like them, even if we lift weights. Even if we lift heavy. The pictures you see on Instagram and Pinterest of manly looking ladies are probably fake, or they are using "outside sources" (aka drugs) to get their muscles as big as they are.

I have been lifting heavy since 2013 and do I look manly? Nope.

Building muscle actually helps complement and improve a feminine figure, giving you a more defined hourglass shape (if that's what you're going for). I like to tell my clients that you can change your size through diet, but you change your shape (for the better) through working out.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that. Tons of crunches do not make a six pack. Tons of lat pull-downs do not make a sculpted back. Tons of heavy squats to not make for defined quads.

What makes the "toned", "sculpted", "defined" look is really just a low-ish body fat percentage.

It comes from lowering your body fat and increasing your muscle mass so that you can see some of your musculature. I say that like it's easy to achieve... But really this part comes down to diet. If you really want to get lean, you need to eat just under the amount your body needs to maintain its current size. This allows your muscle mass to still thrive on your body and be nourished, all while burning off any "excess" fat.

Last thing to learn guys, bear with me. Machines are NOT good. I highly advise against them. Why? Because they are only making you cheat. Machines take away a lot of the "good stuff" from body weight exercises like stability, flexibility, core activation, etc. Believe me, there are SO many bros out there who can leg press 500+ pounds but would get stuck at the bottom of a barbell back squat because they lack the coordination and strength of their stabilizing muscles. The other drawback of machines are that most of them were built for men.

Last time I checked, my husband is bigger than me. His shirts don't fit me, just like a machine built for him won't fit me.

If you use a machine place on the wrong setting or that is the wrong size for you, you can really injure yourself. Machines force your body to go in one line, which more often than not goes against your natural movement pattern. As long as you are trained how to perform these crucial exercises (squat, deadlift, lunge, pushing, pulling and twisting) correctly you are way better off using free weights because YOU have control, not a machine.

I am a naturally curvy person, meaning that my legs and butt have always held the most fat. Years ago, I truly believed that I should only work the other parts of me to avoid adding any extra mass. What I didn't know was that if you're not training legs, you’re not getting the most out of your workout. Think about how big the muscles of your legs are compared to your upper body... they’re a lot bigger right? That means they offer a bigger increase in heart rate and bigger calorie burn.

This means that all of my workouts are leg day. You're welcome.